Have you ever felt like life is just not fair? Of course you have. Who hasn’t.

This is not fair:

Yesterday I talked to our friend and staff member who is in an area of Burma that most don’t dare to go to right now. It is Arakan state. For the past months the area has erupted in terrible violence. Some people say it is a religious and ethnic conflict. I think it is the result of decades of oppression, poverty and suffering among a people who are not allowed citizenship although they have lived in the country for hundreds of years. The people group is called the Rohingya.

Here is Chakin and my friend, whose face I cropped for security reasons.

I may be writing some more about the Rohingya in the days to come. But yesterday I heard this story that moved my heart. It was the story of Chakin (not his real name) who is 8. His village was attacked and burned to the ground in May. During the attack both his parents and his only sibling were also killed. Chakin escaped the village with a neighbor whose name is Gentle May (not her real name). Gentle May was pregnant when they ran, and she already had three little kids. She built a makeshift shelter for her family and Chakin when they arrived at the location they are at now. When she saw the needs around her, she invited more people to come and stay at her house. Now 15 families are staying with her!

Life is not fair. It is not fair for little Chakin. It is not fair for Gentle May. There has been no help getting to them. They, along with around 100,000 more people, are destitute. The world seems to not care about them. They are too busy investing in Burma. They are too busy praising the Burma government for all their great reforms. Too busy to care about 100,000 people who have fled their homes with nowhere to go. Too busy to speak up for a people group who is just as oppressed now as they were three years ago. Too busy to cry out in outrage when Burma’s president suggests that maybe the best way to deal with these unwanted people, around 800,000 of them, is to send them off to other countries.

My friend said: The needs are so desperate. They need everything. Food, shelter, medicine. Partners was given 25,000USD to help in the area. Right now our people are doing their best at making the money last as long as possible, while also trying to help as many as possible. It takes no genius to figure out that the money will soon be gone. Then what?

Today I decided that if I can do nothing else, I can at least raise money. I have spent my day talking to people who may end up giving me some. I want to find at least 100,000 USD somewhere. I know there is that much money. So, I will use my influence and this blog to ask you if you can also help me find it. Could you please forward this blog to your friends, fans, family, even your enemies? Say that you are going to support the cause, and will they too? We are all one big family trying to raise 100,000 dollars. How hard can it be? Show them the picture of Chakin and Gentle May. Tell them that you are helping people like these two. Then tell them that they can see how to donate here or here. Tell them that if they write a check, they can write To Chakin on it. He will of course not get it all, but it is for people like him.

5 Comments

Reblogged this on Biblis Vox and commented:
A source of endless frustration to me in my own work is how often the international community tends to see things as all or nothing: i.e. either there is improvement in a particular country or there is deterioration. The two apparently can’t exist at the same time in the same country. In reality, and as Oddny points out eloquently, progress in some areas can accompany severe setbacks in others and this is precisely what is happening in Burma. Please consider at least praying for, and possibly supporting this outreach to some of the forgotten peoples of Burma.

Thank you for your front-line work on behalf of the victimized and marginalized in Rakhine State. Last summer, after running a couple of medical clinics in a Rohingya encampment of over 200 outside Delhi, our family returned to facilitate a visual storytelling workshop. As you will see from this brief video, the children’s memories of why they were forced to flee were indelible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EA3S1MXM_o

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About Oddny

Oddny is the founder of a non profit organization working with children affected by conflict and oppression. She is a motivational speaker, the author of 2 books, and mother to 3 beautiful girls.Read More